Installing a new SD card when you have A2SD+

[smokinmonkey]

OK I had an awful problem replacing my stock SD card with my new 16GB one. I had rooted and installed a version of LeeDroid with A2SD+ will with the stock SD in the phone. Many people had posted "how" to do it but using their methods it didn't work. Below I will detail the method I used to get it working (trial and error, leaving out the errors!)

As you may or may not know A2SD+ requires an ext partition on the SD card, this is a linux file partition and cannot be seen by a windows computer. If you insert a SD card into the phone without this partition the phone will cycle in a bootloop.

You will need ROM manager and Titanium Backup for this process.

1. If you do not have access to a linux computer, download a live CD. I used ubuntu 10.10.

2. Run the live CD and insert your sd card. Open the disk utility, unmount all partitions and then format the disk using to the master boot (whatever it's called). This first formation option is at the top of the disk utility page.

3. now click on the "bar" of memory shown (picture of the unallocated space). Now below this you will see "create partition". Click this and change the entire disk to FAT.

4. exit out of the live cd and restart in windows.

5. now on your phone (still with old SD card in it) make a Titanium Backup of all your apps and data. I didn't need to use mine but it's just incase something goes wrong.

6. now open ROM manager and make a Nandroid backup. This is like an image of your phone as it currently stands.

7. in windows, copy the contents of your SD card to a folder on your PC.

8. download a new ROM that doesn't use A2SD+.. (I downloaded the LeeDroid non A2SD+ version) and place it in the root directory of your SD card

9. Open up ROM manager, install rom from sd, clear data and wipe cache. Make some tea as this will take about 10-15 minutes usually. It will restart in your no non A2SD ROM.

10. Turn off your phone, insert the NEW SD.. power up and install ROM manager from the market.

11. Open ROM manager, and select the first option (flash clockworkmod recovery, or something similar. this will download the update.zip to your SD) Now select to partition the SD card the same way the old one was (512MB ext, 0MB swap usually). Leave the phone until it starts up again.

12. Now go to the folder on the PC where you backed up the old SD card, file the folder "clockworkmod" and copy it to the new SD.

13. Open up ROM manager and restore the backup you made at the start.

When your phone starts up, it will be as it was before, with a larger SD


Any problems / questions please ask.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

youve made this far too difficult i would also remove rom manager from the equation as it means you need to be booted.
if you are rooted then you dont need to access recovery from rom manager as you can just use voldown+power

so my recommendations

1. get gparted live CD and burn to CD or unetboot install to usb
2. format new sdcard as fat32 and create a second partion as ext3 (min 512)
3. boot to recovery on device (voldown+power) and make a backup of the current rom in clockworkmod (or amonRA if you are using that)
4. mount ms (mass storage) from recovery and copy the contents from the sdcard to the pc.
5. power off device and swap SDcards and then boot straight back to recovery and mount ms (mass storage) then copy the data from pc to the new sdcard dismount ms (mass storage).
6. go to backup/restore and restore the backup created
7. reboot device, enjoy

 

[smokinmonkey]

Hey, I followed a few different sets of instructions similar to yours and each time I had problems. When I originally made the ext3 in Linux and copied the old SD card contents it didn't work properly? I got stuck in a bootloop a few times etc at other points.

I just posted the steps I used to do it. I found when you have a Nandroid backup you don't need to copy the SD card contents only the clockwork folder and the update.zip

The Nandroid will restore your SD, but of course make a backup just incase, it just saves time copying gbs of data between cards.

 

[SUroot]

Rastaman is right.

the sd card data he refers to is the rest of your data, music, pictures etc. nandroid does not restore this.

Also, I try to recommend not using rom manager. So you don't need the update.zip either.

But yeah:

Take nandroid backup and put all fat32 data on pc
Insert new card, mount as mass storage and partition via gparted.
Copy Fat32 data back to SD
Nandroid restore.


I can confirm this as a 100% fully working solution.

 

[smokinmonkey]

Rastaman is right.

the sd card data he refers to is the rest of your data, music, pictures etc. nandroid does not restore this.

Also, I try to recommend not using rom manager. So you don't need the update.zip either.

But yeah:

Take nandroid backup and put all fat32 data on pc
Insert new card, mount as mass storage and partition via gparted.
Copy Fat32 data back to SD
Nandroid restore.


I can confirm this as a 100% fully working solution.

^ Hey I just realised this whenever I opened my photos today and only had one. Luckily I saved all my SD cards data to the computer.

What sd card data does Nandroid store though?

 

[Rastaman-FB]

sd-ext for a2sd

 

[ksavai]

I had leedroid App2SD+ running on my desire with 2 gb SD card when I went to follow lots of instruction for upgrading to my new 16 gb SD card most of them failed. Finally I got success so writing this for others to understand.

Most of them asked to back up fat32 portion and nandroid backup after that replace the card, partition get data from fat32 and restore your android but that dont work because.

After I insert new 16 gb card, unfortunately my market, rom manager was in internal memory but was in ext partition of my 2 gb card so can not load it. I dont have linux so I can not partition it too. So I saw this thread and followed smokinmonkey method and modified little bit. Which worked as follows.

1. Back up data of fat32 portion into hard disk
2. Nandroid backup
3. put leedroid non app2sd+ version on new SD card
4. restart in recovery
5. flash non app2sd+ version
6. open ROM manager and partition 16 gb card
7. load backup data from pc
8. restore old nandroid backup

Everything will be as it is. This will work great who don't want to use linux. Ask me if you have more questions.

 

[SUroot]

I had leedroid App2SD+ running on my desire with 2 gb SD card when I went to follow lots of instruction for upgrading to my new 16 gb SD card most of them failed. Finally I got success so writing this for others to understand.

Most of them asked to back up fat32 portion and nandroid backup after that replace the card, partition get data from fat32 and restore your android but that dont work because.

After I insert new 16 gb card, unfortunately my market, rom manager was in internal memory but was in ext partition of my 2 gb card so can not load it. I dont have linux so I can not partition it too. So I saw this thread and followed smokinmonkey method and modified little bit. Which worked as follows.

1. Back up data of fat32 portion into hard disk
2. Nandroid backup
3. put leedroid non app2sd+ version on new SD card
4. restart in recovery
5. flash non app2sd+ version
6. open ROM manager and partition 16 gb card
7. load backup data from pc
8. restore old nandroid backup

Everything will be as it is. This will work great who don't want to use linux. Ask me if you have more questions.

That's because for some reason you are using Rom manager to restore your nandroid backups. You don't need to use it (and I also do not recommend using it)

The whole idea is you boot into recovery manually.

Also its better to use gparted to partition. I would also recommend nandroid backup before copying fat 32 to pc.

 

[ksavai]

Yes but for me there is no other way to partition my card.
I do backup and restore from recovery.
I dont find any other method online simpler than this to partition just using windows. Anyways all is well now for me. I just posted if someone with same problem come to this thread.

 

[SUroot]

Alternatively I could point them to my faq.

Yes Rom manager is easiest but there's limited options, no way to check the partition, no way to redo the partition and is adding another layer of software to go wrong.

If anyone does struggle with following the procedures in my faq, please pm me or ask in the app2sd; faq thread located in the root forum sticky

Edit: just to mention, please dont take offense as non is intended

 

[Usta]

Gparted works fine (that's how I've partitioned my SD card, and for that matter also my notebook). It has its own GUI and you don't need any linux knowledge to use it.

 

[SUroot]

Gparted works fine (that's how I've partitioned my SD card, and for that matter also my notebook). It has its own GUI and you don't need any linux knowledge to use it.

Precisely and it works on any computer that can boot from USB or CD, regardless of its OS (Even OSx)

 

[All Thumbs]

Hi Suroot
New to all this so please bear with me.
I have a desire with the standard 4gb card. I have just purchased a 32gb card. Can you in plain English. Baby language for me please. How to change cards.
Much appreciated. If there is a sticky that will oblige just redirect me

Ray

 

[Usta]

Hi Suroot
New to all this so please bear with me.
I have a desire with the standard 4gb card. I have just purchased a 32gb card. Can you in plain English. Baby language for me please. How to change cards.
Much appreciated. If there is a sticky that will oblige just redirect me

Ray

1. Copy the content of the old card to PC, also all hidden files. This can be done with USB cable phone connected to PC or in a card reader.
2. Copy the content back to the new card, also all hidden files. This can be done with USB cable phone connected to PC or in a card reader.
3. Reboot the phone. Done.

 

[All Thumbs]

Sounds soooo simple. No reason why it shouldn't be is there ? Will give it a go.

Sincere thanks

 

[sjay68]

Rastaman is right.

the sd card data he refers to is the rest of your data, music, pictures etc. nandroid does not restore this.

Also, I try to recommend not using rom manager. So you don't need the update.zip either.

But yeah:

Take nandroid backup and put all fat32 data on pc
Insert new card, mount as mass storage and partition via gparted.
Copy Fat32 data back to SD
Nandroid restore.


I can confirm this as a 100% fully working solution.

Hello gents, sorry I'm new to rooting but have a good grasp of Operating systems, I have rooted my phone, now I'd very much like to use my 8GB SD card from my Kaiser in the Desire, I have Gparted and set up the partitions as suggested Swap-32MB, EXT2 - 512MB, FAT32 @ 2 GB & EXT3- 512MB. The issue I've got is I can't restore the backup I copied from the Desire to a FAT32 partition on my EXT HDD, Windows thinks I need to format the SD card when it is mounted. Clockwork is also unable to mount the SD card, have I fried it??

I still have the backup so I thought I'd try using unrevoked to restore but to no avail. Any thoughts would be most welcome.

Thanks

 

[SUroot]

What ROM suggests that layout?

The FAT32 partition must be first or windows wont see it. Windows can only see the first partition of an sd card.

 

[sjay68]

What ROM suggests that layout?

The FAT32 partition must be first or windows wont see it. Windows can only see the first partition of an sd card.

SU Root, It was a tutorial I found on You Tube unfortunately.

Roms-Au - Partition SD Card using GParted.mp4 - YouTube

No worries, I'll change the layout, to below

FAT32 - 2 GB
SWAP - 32MB
EXT2 - 512MB
EXT3 - 512MB

What're your thoughts on the need for Ext 2 & 3, will one or the other suffice?? Do they all have to be Primary?? Also do you know of any good Gingerbread ROMS I could maybe upgrade to, first things first, need a larger SD card and then I'll be looking at ROMS (sorry if this is a question for another thread).

Thanks

 

[SUroot]

Unless a ROM specifically asks for a different SD set up, usually its 1x FAT32 partition followed by 1xEXT3/4 etc

My advice, find a rom you like the look of first then look at its requirements,